Black Bean and Chorizo Soup with Rice

This is a recipe I found on Pinterest and slightly altered. I made this once before and really enjoyed it, so I decided to was time to share it with you.

2 cans of seasoned black beans (drained, not rinsed)
32 oz chicken broth (one carton)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves of garlic minced
2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp cumin
1 lb chorizo
white rice cooked according to package directions
fresh cilantro

The first thing I did was remove the chorizo from it's skin. Then I chopped it up in a pan while browning it. 

 
While the sausage is browning, put some olive oil in a large pot and add the onions, garlic, chili powder and cumin. Cook until the onion and garlc begin to soften and release their juices.

 Add the chicken broth and the black beans. Let everything simmer for about a half hour on low heat. 

While the soup is simmering, cook the rice according to package directions. Using an emersion blender, blend up some of the soup mixture to get a creamy consistency.  If you don't have one, you could move some of the soup to a regular blender or a food processor. I probably was a little over zealous, but it was still wonderful.

Once it's nice and creamy, add the sausage to the soup.

For serving, put a little rice in a bowl...

Top the rice with a large ladle of the soup...

Garnish the soup with some fresh cilantro, and enjoy!

*I made this over a month ago, but just finally got around to adding the photos and posting it. Now I wish I had made this soup today so that I could eat some right now.


 

Slow Cooker French Onion Soup

Week four of the challenge is to cook something inspired by music. All I kept thinking about was "Rock Lobster" by the B-52's. Alas, rock lobsters aren't easy to find in Maryland, in January. After doing a little googleing, I decided to use "The Onion Song", by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell as my inspiration. It's also a super cold day here, so I really want some soup for lunch.

Here is the cast of characters...

3 small yellow onions, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
4 tbsp of butter, cut into chunks
1 tsp cooking sherry
1 tsp Worcestershire
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried parsley
1 bay leaf
bread for croutons
shredded mozzarella cheese

Slice the onions and place them on the bottom of the crock.( I used my small slow cooker for this because I'm the only one who is going to be eating this. If you have a lot of onion soup lovers in your house, double or triple the recipe and use a large slow cooker.)

Peel and mince the garlic and sprinkle that on top of the onions. Then add the butter. Set this up to cook on high for about four hours, stirring every hour. The onions will get nice and caramelized.

After four hours, add the sherry, Worcestershire, thyme, parsley, and bay leaf. Continue cooking on high for 2 hours.

Ladle the soup into a bowl, then top it with your croutons and some mozzarella cheese. Usually, you should broil this for a few minutes to get the cheese nice and brown. I didn't do that because I don't know if my bowls are oven safe and I didn't want it to break.

I made this Tuesday when it was super cold outside. I wished it had more flavor. It was good, but it lacked the richness you usually want in French Onion Soup.

Beef Bulgogi

This week I was really excited for the challenge. Korean. I have made this a few times before, but this was the newest recipe I developed, and I liked this better than the others I have made.

 For the marinade:
1/3 cup soy sauce (I used low sodium)
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp tahini (Sesame seed paste)
2 tbsp honey
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1-2 tbsp minced ginger

1.5 lbs ribeye, sliced very thin
1 bunch of scallions
about 2 tbsp vegetable oil

Mix all the ingredients listed for the marinade with a whisk. Put the beef, marinade, and about half of the scallions, very thinly sliced, into a large baggie. I marinated mine for about ten hours, but you could go as long as 24 or as little as one.

Put the vegetable oil in a wok and set it to about medium high. Once the oil is nice and hot add the beef. Discard any unused marinade. This will cook pretty quickly, but you want to keep mixing it up so that it cooks evenly.

I served this with some brown rice and snow peas. It was yummy.

Mint Iced Tea

I hate to say it, but it's week two and I'm already lacking inspiration. This week's challenge is mint. I really feel like I should be making savory things and not sweet, since it's cooking, not baking. Alas, I do not like savory mint dishes. I hate lamb, or maybe I just haven't had it prepared well. I also thought about lots of dishes that have a mint-yogurt sauce. Too bad I hate yogurt. Some friends gave me some interesting ideas, but nothing I was really excited about. The only thing I could think of all week was mint tea, so I decided on a sweet iced tea with fresh mint sprigs.

I have one of those Mr. Coffee iced tea makers and I love it. In about five minutes you can have a huge pitcher of fresh iced tea. For this I used five regular tea bags and five mint tea bags. Once the tea was brewed I added some simple syrup (about a quarter cup), and garnished my glass of tea with a sprig of fresh mint from the pot on my front porch. This tea is also really good with a little vodka in it. It's not much of a recipe, but it's all I could think of. I promise something much better for next week, as I am really excited about the theme.

Coconut Shrimp with Pineapple-Jalapeno Sauce

Okay, so here I go again, promising to be a better blogger. Yada yada yada. It's a new year, so I'm going to try again. With the new year there is a new 52 weeks of cooking challenge. Week one is appetizers. I've been meaning to make this for so long, so I finally have something to push me.

So here's what you need for the coconut shrimp...

1 lb large shrimp, shelled and de-veined
1/3 cup unsweetened coconut
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
honey/water mixture, about 1 tbsp of each mixed together
parchment paper

Peel and de-vein your shrimp...

Mix the honey and water together...

Mix the coconut, cayenne pepper, and garlic powder together...

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Then set up an assembly line.

Dip each shrimp in the honey-water mixture, then coat with the coconut mixture. Set each coated shrimp on the parchment lined cookie sheet.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 8-10 minutes, then flip them over and bake for another 8-10 minutes.

While they are cooking mix together the pineapple-jalapeno sauce.

Here's what you need for the sauce...

1/2 cup pineapple preserves
1/2 jalapeno, minced
juice from 1 lime

Serve the shrimp with the sauce and enjoy!

Roasted Asparagus and Mushrooms

This week's challenge is asparagus. I love asparagus! We usually eat it about once a week, and this is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to prepare it.

To start prepping your asparagus you need to either cut the ends of the stems off, or gently bend them until they break off on their own. I use the bend method.

Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees. Lay the asparagus out in a single layer on a cooking sheet, then add mushroom slices if you like mushrooms. These were large, pre-sliced button mushrooms that called out to me in the grocery store.

Spray everything with a little olive oil, then sprinkle some salt, fresh ground pepper and a little coarse ground garlic on it.

 You can see that this garlic is a lot more coarse than regular garlic powder.

Roast in the oven for about 10-15 minutes.

I served this with roasted potatoes and grilled flank steak. Sometimes I will also add a little fresh lemon juice before cooking the asparagus, and other times I melt freshly grated Parmesan cheese on it during the last two minutes in the oven.